In 2009, Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan came to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to attend university. After 18 years of eating home-cooked meals, he missed the flavors and dishes of his hometown that he couldn’t find anywhere in Saigon.
Vietnamese cuisine is diverse, with each region known for its unique dishes. However, Quang Tri has never been among the top provinces famous for its culinary delights, unlike other places. Therefore, Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan, born in 1991, left his stable job with a salary of nearly $1,000 to pursue his dream of bringing the specialties of his hometown to the world.
In 2009, Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan entered HCMC to study at university. After 18 years of eating home-cooked meals, he missed the flavors and dishes of his hometown that he couldn’t find anywhere in Saigon. Moreover, every time he visited home, the villagers would encourage Thuan to find a way to introduce their local products more widely. This inspired Thuan to open an eatery selling Quang Tri specialties in HCMC.
After graduating, he spent a year working at an import-export company, during which he accumulated a small amount of money and experience to turn his dream into reality. In 2015, he quit his well-paying job (nearly $1,000) and founded the brand “Ca Men.” As he recalled, the “ca men” was his childhood friend, used to carry rice to the fields for his parents during lunch.
With limited capital, Thuan chose a small alley to save costs. The young man’s first small eatery, with his distinct Quang Tri accent, consisted of just a few small plastic tables and chairs set in the courtyard of a rented house in a dead-end alley on Go Dau Street, Tan Phu District (HCMC).
Every day, Thuan’s parents in his hometown personally prepared 30-40 kg of food to send to HCMC to support Ca Men’s business operations. With limited capital, Thuan also took on the role of delivery person to build trust with customers. “My friends also became delivery drivers; whenever there was a call, they would go. Three or four of us would run around all day and collapse from exhaustion at night, but it was fun,” Thuan recounted.
The neighbors of “Ca Men Alley” were initially worried that the eatery would become a noisy drinking spot. Nevertheless, they enthusiastically supported Thuan in his early days of starting the business. Most of the fish sauce used by the neighborhood was supplied by Ca Men, and many neighbors became regular customers by frequently ordering live chickens and ducks for a whole week.
Then, Thuan’s fellow Quang Tri natives also started visiting the eatery. Initially, they came just to support a fellow native, but gradually they became regular customers because “when they craved hometown food, they could eat it to ease the longing.” Over time, Ca Men became a familiar place for people from Quang Tri when they were far from home.
Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan took nearly six years to find the right direction for his brand’s development. The first dish on Ca Men’s menu, bringing hometown specialties to the South, was steamed rice rolls. His friends thought he was crazy because in HCMC, there were street vendors selling steamed rice rolls every two meters, not to mention the long-distance transportation from Quang Tri. However, having graduated in import-export and with experience in the field, Thuan established connections with transportation hubs at bus stations and Phu Bai Airport (Hue) to quickly and efficiently transport Quang Tri specialties. As a result, after the first month of opening, Thuan expanded his business to include chicken, duck, and spices characteristic of the central region, such as shallots and fish sauce.
In 2017, Ca Men took a significant step by moving its “headquarters” to Phu Nhuan District. The number of customers increased, and Ca Men opened another branch in Thu Duc District. With three branches after three years of entrepreneurship, Thuan discovered several gaps in his management approach. He shared that at one point, he and his wife hugged each other and cried because after working tirelessly for a month, they only had 500,000 VND left after paying employee salaries and rent.
By the end of 2018, Ca Men’s owner was in such a difficult situation that he had to take his wife’s laptop to a pawn shop, pleading for 5 million VND to cover debts. “At that moment, I felt incredibly painful. For others, a husband is a spiritual support, but for me…” Thuan recalled.
Faced with mounting difficulties, dark thoughts briefly crossed the young owner’s mind. However, the image of his parents in the countryside, who prepared dozens of kilograms of authentic Quang Tri ingredients for Ca Men every day, and his diligent wife who wholeheartedly supported him, kept Thuan from abandoning his dream.
Learning from past failures, Thuan reduced the number of branches to just one. Last year, the Covid-19 pandemic affected Ca Men’s business, but he affirmed that he is moving in the right direction and achieving positive results.
The Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted the food industry, especially startup models like Ca Men. However, Thuan prepared to adapt to new models. He realized that the semi-processed business model would soon have a place, where businesses sell pre-processed ingredients that customers can easily finish cooking at home.
Ca Men launched a product called “Ca Men Snakehead Fish Porridge” in vacuum-sealed packaging, with pre-processed ingredients, making it convenient for long-distance transportation and consumers. Just a few months after launching, Thuan successfully introduced Quang Tri specialties to major cities.
To promote his snakehead fish porridge widely, Ca Men organized a product experience contest on social media. Additionally, as online shopping became more popular, Ca Men began selling on multiple platforms like Grab, ShopeeFood, Baemin, and others, allowing customers to easily make purchases and increasing orders for the business. Every day, Ca Men’s only store is bustling with technology-based delivery drivers waiting to pick up orders. As Thuan recounted, when HCMC officially eased restrictions to allow takeout, he received over 200 messages in one night asking about the reopening plans of the eatery.
The entrepreneurial journey of the Ca Men brand embodies optimism and perseverance in bringing hometown specialties far and wide while also demonstrating agility in responding to the unpredictable challenges of the pandemic. The road ahead is long, but Thuan’s ingenuity and determination give people confidence that Ca Men will continue to carry the spirit of “bringing Quang Tri to the city,” just as he once said.
